


Get Gone

by OtherCat



Series: contra legem [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Conquered Earth AU, Gen, Implied Torture, Lynching, No Miracles, Religious Themes, nonSgrub AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:48:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk does not get enough warning to get the heck out of Dodge. </p><p>(A contra legem pre story.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Gone

He’d spent most of the evening carving out chunks of beehouse mainframe while cranky purple bees danced irritable binary doh-si-dohs around his head. “C’mon guys, give me a break here,” Dirk said to the bees. “The house can’t extend more than ten centimeters beyond its fixture; it’s in the goddamn regulations.”

The bees did not care, and buzzed snippy comments about his not using Alternian measurements. Dirk was about to rebut, but was interrupted by Esalgo, his team leader. The big lime blood looked worried. “Strider, Syrinx is taking over your shift.”

Dirk blinked. “What? Why?” Despite his confusion, he immediately began to pack up as skinny corkscrew-horned Syrinx sidled past Esalgo and began to set up her kit. The bees complained about the switch, but Syrinx was humming away at them, singing them into a more cooperative mood as she worked.

“The Trib militia may be planning an attack,” Esalgo said. “Very high probability. Very high as in prognostication heard the voices of the deceased. They’re less certain on ‘where’ and ‘when’.”

“Shit.” The Church of the Tribulation had a habit of making very graphic examples of collaborators. Half the time, Dirk thought the bastards were actually on the Alternian payroll. Their methods did not exactly win the hearts and minds of the populace to their rhetoric. (Which was mostly creepy doomsday bullshit combined with good ole boy racist bullshit. The only good thing about them was that they weren’t Texan--the home of the Church was supposed to be somewhere up in Montana.) “How much time do I got, boss?”

“A very narrow, rapidly decreasing window,” Esalgo said, and tossed Dirk a keycard. Dirk caught it immediately. “That’s for base temporary housing. Get your ward and warn as many of your neighbors as possible.”

Dirk caught the key card. “Your altruism is astonishing, boss.” Because it really was, he hadn’t needed to give Dirk the warning. Another Supervisor wouldn’t have bothered, letting him work through his shift. 

Esalgo growled. "Fuck altruism. Just get gone Strider.”

Dirk got.

The ride home was high stress and full of check points, mostly human soldiers.  At one point, he got stopped for about fifteen minutes because the soldiers at a check point decided he was suspicious. The yellow blood sergeant interrupted what might have turned into a fight and sent Dirk on his way. Dirk remembered the sergeant’s name: Corvus Bennes. Once he got Dave and they were both safe, Dirk was going to recite the Litany of Small Kindnesses for him, and probably Esalgo too.

It was 10:00 p.m. when he got back. He knocked on doors on the way up to his apartment, passing on the information and heading on. There were a lot of people who worked for the trolls in this neighborhood, which made it a major potential target for the Tribs.

Dave was asleep in his room. He wakes up instantly and quietly when touched on the shoulder. “Grab your bolt bag,” Dirk says, and doesn’t bother to wait to make sure he does as he’s told. Dave will, they have practiced this before. Don’t ask questions, get your shoes on, grab your bag and go. Dirk grabs his own bag and by that time, Dave is already out of his room with his back pack. They abscond from the apartment, taking the emergency stairs instead of the elevator.  

They almost made it to the car.

There are fucking _explosions_.

They are cut off from the car by big trucks, gunfire, and assholes with guns shouting random lines from St. John’s bad fucking trip. There are people screaming, whoops, fire and gunshots. There are Tribs in cammo and white masks with guns. Most of the people in the neighborhood have guns too, and there is an exchange of fire as they attempt to escape.

Dirk feels more than a little unarmed with his shitty ass swordkind. A knot of Tribs are coming right toward him and Dave. These guys are armed with bats and pipes instead of guns. This is a capture team, which is very not good.   

This is not particularly going to stop him. Dirk hands over the keycard to Dave. “Sup,” he says, holding his hands up, like, he doesn’t know what Tribs do to prisoners. They slow down, confident that they can take him down. When they are close enough he draws and steps, and Dave runs. A couple of them try to go after Dave, but Dave is small and fast and Dirk is big and even faster. He has them nicely distracted long enough for Dave to hopefully get away and then a club connects with his head and everything is red-shot black.

She is thin with a razor grin and a smoky laugh like a bell straight from hell. Her neck is teal raw and the thing that draws his eye in this unlit space is the sign of Cancer hanging on a narrow steel chain around that broken neck. She is teal and red and her eyes are a blank white void. “What’s the difference between a hero and a martyr?” The troll asks, and then she’s gone as a splash of water and something that definitely isn’t water is dumped on his head. Dirk spits and sputters and the guy with a bucket laughs and throws it at Dirk’s head. He isn’t able to dodge it, his hands have been tied behind his back, and the plastic bucket connects.

Dirk doesn’t get much of a look around. He is dazed and dizzy and the lights hurt his eyes. There is a crowd and there are torches. He thinks it is a playground near the apartment complex. It is a very particular kind of party and he is one of a group that is intended to be the entertainment. He is hauled to his feet and dragged over to one of the trees. They are talking, but nothing they are saying is worth listening to. Dirk is apparently about to receive the full penalty for being a collaborator and _race traitor_.

He struggles, but it doesn’t do him a lot of good. They get him to the tree and a rope is tied around the rope binding his wrists. They toss the other end of the rope over a branch and pull the other end, yanking his arms up. Dirk screams and for some reason the first thing that pops into his head out of his mouth is, _“you are traitors to your true selves.”_  Quoting from the Last Sermon during what are going to be your own last moments is either ironic or blasphemous--Dirk is not certain and has no way of asking. He gets kicked in the stomach and accused of speaking the devil’s tongue. So he says it in English, then in the other devil’s tongue, which is Spanish.

They yank on the rope hard and long enough to pull him half off his feet. He goes into the dark again, and she’s there. “Not looking for a martyr’s crown,” Dirk says to her.

“Human martyrs get crowns?” She asks curiously.

“Supposedly. What do trolls get? You’re already rocking the pointy head gear.”

Nooses or irons, usually,” she says with a smoke-infused chuckle. “The same as heroes.”

He comes up again to the sounds of more screaming. He is hanging off the ground and his arms are out of their sockets. He gets a glimpse of a woman--no one he knows and he hates himself for thinking _thank God_ \--screaming, trying to somehow get away from the spike being shoved up between her legs. Somewhere there is a shriller, more terrible scream from a child that is horribly cut off. There is so much blood everywhere. _You are traitors to your true selves, as you have caused others to weep so shall you. You who could be more have become less._ Dirk is not surprised he was hearing the words closest to the point in the Last Sermon where the Sufferer descends into the Rage Blacker than the Distance between Stars.

They are _fucking singing hymns about God’s Grace and mercy._

Dirk laughs. Which wasn’t the best idea, because that draws attention to himself. The next few minutes are ugly and involve so much pain he would have liked to black out again, so of course, he doesn’t. They want to know what he thinks is funny, and he says, “the irony, bro. The irony that’s killing me.” It gets worse after that, and he finally goes under.

“What drew you to the Signless?” She asks him.

“The irony,” Dirk says. “Your Condesce never got the ‘by this sign conquer’ memo.”

“I have no idea of what you’re talking about,” She says.

“A human emperor,” Dirk says. “It’s not important.”

“It certainly isn’t. What is important?” She signs the Irons at him, meaning she wants an honest, real answer.

“My brother,” Dirk says immediately.

“Not revenge, not the other people suffering?”

“Is my being able to alleviate their suffering on the table?”

“No. You’re not psychic, or the right kind of psychic.”

“Then my brother not getting caught and killed or worse by these Trib bastards,” Dirk says. “Protection and something resembling justice for the survivors.”

“If you had to pick one?”

“I don’t have to pick,” Dirk says. “Dave will not get caught, and _there will be justice_.”

She smiles and kisses him on the forehead.

He awakens to be a featured presentation. He manages to get through most of the Last Sermon. He is stopped permanently before he can make it to the Denunciations. The only grace or mercy is that by then, dying doesn’t hurt very much.

**Author's Note:**

> Dirk is referring to Emperor Constantine, who received the memo in question.
> 
> Dirk was converted to the Sufferist cult by the troll who taught him combgramming and mind bee apiculture. His patron saint is the E%patriate.
> 
>  
> 
> This fic has an [**ask blog**](http://contralegemasks.tumblr.com/ask).


End file.
